Blizzard apologizes for Warlords of Draenor launch, adds free time for subscribers

The World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor release didn't go as smoothly as anyone would have liked. Players had trouble accessing overcrowded servers, a situation exacerbated by a DDoS attack launched the day the expansion came out. The situation is apparently better now, although it's still not perfect, but Blizzard is continuing to work on it, and Executive Producer J. Allen Brack is doing everyone a solid to make up for the hassle.

"I know how much everyone was looking forward to this expansion, and once you were able to get in and start having fun, all the comments I've seen indicate that this is one of our best yet," Brack wrote in message posted on the World of Warcraft forums. "But the quality of the content does not excuse the subpar launch experience we delivered, and I apologize for that."

Blizzard is expanding its use of new instancing technology that helped improve server queues over the past weekend, which Brack said will roughly double the pre-launch capacity of each game realm, enough to greatly reduce queues or even eliminate them altogether. It's also extending every subscription in the Americas, Oceania, and Europe that was active as of November 14 by five days to make up for the aggravation players experienced during the first few days of release.

"The support voiced by many of you as we worked through the challenges was immensely appreciated," Brack wrote. "We're extremely grateful to be part of such a passionate community. We love World of Warcraft, and we're very proud of this expansion, so stumbling out of the gates like this was very disappointing for all of us."